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Alexander Keiller's Avebury
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Sanctuary
Sanctuary
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Re: The Stukeley Line
Jan 21, 2013, 14:48
bladup wrote:
Littlestone wrote:
Well said.

As no-one’s addressed my point that, “If these stones were Roman statues they would not lay fallen or buried for long; they would be excavated, restored, conserved and put on display – yet these massive, megalithic artefacts from our distance past, selected with care and hauled considerable distances, are allowed to remain fallen or buried at Avebury.” so I’ll ask the question again – why?

Is it because they’re deemed of lesser importance than a Roman statue? (sad and misguided if it is). Is it because landowners don’t want people tramping round in their fields? Or is because some residents of Avebury don’t want more visitors in their village? Probably all three, and maybe more. Sad though isn’t it. Sad that a World Heritage Site of such importance and of such hidden potential should suffer from such narrow mindedness (and I make no apology for using that term) and the selfish interests of the few. Stukeley said it all, and again I make no apology for quoting him (his words should be carved on a plaque and nailed somewhere prominent in Avebury for all to see).

“And this stupendous fabric, which for some thousands of years, had brav'd the continual assaults of weather, and by the nature of it, when left to itself, like the pyramids of Egypt, would have lasted as long as the globe, hath fallen a sacrifice to the wretched ignorance and avarice of a little village unluckily plac'd within it.”

Time we made our mind up on this. Do we want the blinkered, the NIMBY-ites and those who can’t see further than their next paycheque telling the rest of us what’s good for them or do we elevate ‘this stupendous fabric’ of a World Heritage Site to the status it so right deserves but has sadly so long been denied.


Make it about money and it'll never happen, make it about peoples dreams and time and it will, it's gonna happen at one point in the not to distant future, i can feel it in my bones, this is the best discussion i've ever read on here!


The thing which REALLY surprises me is that many many people that I meet in everyday life have never heard of Avebury and even less about Silbury Hill. I find this really odd, especially now that Avebury is rightfully (in my opinion) placed higher in status than Stonehenge which the world and his wife know about!
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